Rosemary Morales Pongo

I started this research out of curiosity from my personal observation of the time, affection, and money pet owners invest in their mascots. My ethnographic work focused on analyzing the emotional bonding between humans and animals. My field notes were the product of participant observation in a pet store, the home of a young couple with two guinea pigs and looking after the two cavies, for two weeks, in my home. At the pet store the guinea pigs’ habitat was on public display, they mostly hid in their houses and came out to the open space to satisfy their basic needs of food and water. The only interaction between humans and animals happened at cleaning and feeding time. They usually remain nameless during their shorter stay in the store and a relationship with the animal does not take place.

At the home of my interlocutors, the environment was different. The two female guinea pigs have a name, Sol and Estrella, four and three years old respectively. During the cleaning of their enclosure, it seemed a routine was developed: two soft houses, called by my interlocutors “shuttle bus,” were placed in the middle of their habitat to remove them and the cavies just went in, were placed on the floor and waited inside until the soft houses were back in their enclosure to come out and roam their new clean and tidy crate. My interlocutors spoke about their pets in an endearing way, talking like proud parents about the “turn around” trick they taught them, or discussing the veggies they liked the most, and about their personalities. They also mentioned the Instagram account “Galaxy Guinea Girls” they set up for them. I noticed the sadness that manifested in their voices and faces about the passing of a third guinea pig, Luna, the mother of Sol, in 2023. Even with a surgery, the prognosis was poor for recovery, due to her old age, and she remained under palliative care to ease her journey.

During their time in my home, the guinea pigs took a few days to feel comfortable to eat their veggies out in the open, eventually they felt at easy with my presence and ate from their food bowls. And I became synonymous with food and treats! They liked to smell my hands, made noises, observed me, and seemed to enjoy a clean crate. I observed them recognizing their “human family” when called by name and easily entering their “shuttle bus” when the time came to go home. My research led me to conclude that humans can develop a strong emotional bond with their pets, and that this care is tied to the extensive labour they put into taking care of their household’s animals. While I found impossible to conduct a formal interview with the guinea pigs, I also had the sense that the pets form a bond with the owners in turn. By observing the pet’s behaviour, the interactions with the humans, the cohabitation on a permanent basis, and the non-verbal cues pets and owners use in their efforts to communicate. All are signals that this pet-human relationship can develop a sense of kinship grounded in trust and affection. And is this

emotional bond that contributes to the animal being elevated to the category of a family member and is reflected in the sharing stories and visuals of their pet’s uniqueness with others.